Week 7

We had quite an exciting week!

Because my companion, Hna Bonar, is the STL, every transfer she has to go on exchanges with all the sisters in our zone. Which is fun for me cause that means for one day every week I get different companions! The only downside... We are the only hermanas in the zone, the rest are sisters. SO, when Hna Bonar goes out on exchanges I get an English speaking companion for the day. Basically I'm in charge of the area and all of our investigators, and I don't even speak Spanish!! Our first exchange was this past week, and I was so nervous for it. I had only been in the field for 8 days and already I was expected to lead out the area for the day. I still have no idea what they were thinking. But this is the Lord's work, so everything worked out, just like it always does.

One of the highlights of the week was getting to do service!! A bunch of us missionaries got together with the Houston Food Bank and set up a drive-thru where anyone could come through and for free we would load up their car with tons of groceries. It was HOT, but so worth it. Service is always worth it.

No baptisms this week. Luis was supposed to be baptized but at the last minute said he didn't feel ready. He will get there, though. We had three investigators at church yesterday: Carlos, Geronimo, and Luis. All three are single, Hispanic men in their 40s or 50s. Actually that fits the description of almost all of our investigators. For some reason, older single men are the only ones who will listen to us...

One thing that you quickly pick up on as a Spanish speaking missionary in Texas is how to tell if a person's Hispanic by looking at their porch. In case any of you guys ever need to determine this, here's a few tips: 1. Potted plants. 2. Wind chimes. 3. Figurines of frogs or butterflies or snails. 4. Porch furniture that looks like it's used a lot. 5. Homemade grills. 6. Bricks around their trees. 7. Lots of cars in the driveway. If they have 3 or more of these things, chances are they're Hispanic. If they have 5 or more, they DEFINITELY are Hispanic. Seriously, this technique is golden. By the end of my mission, I will be the master at finding Hispanics.

One night all of our appointments had fallen through and it was only 8:30, so we still had half an hour before we could call it a night. So we stopped by a potential investigators house, and before going in we said a specific prayer that we would find someone to teach or something to do to be productive with our time. Then we went up and knocked. The potential investigator we had hoped to teach wasn't there, but her son was! Hna Bonar said she had tried to teach him before and he wasn't really interested, but when we asked if we could share a message with him about our purpose here on earth, he said yes! Heavenly Father really is in all the details of our lives and He listens to and answers every single prayer.

I love the scripture in Mormon 9:21:

"Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth."

This promise is unto all. Unto me, unto you, unto members of the church, unto missionaries, unto investigators. The only condition is that we have full faith in Christ.

I know that this gospel is the true gospel of Jesus Christ and that it is for everyone. I haven't even been on a mission two months, and I already know it's the best decision I've ever made.

I love you guys!

Love, Hermana Baker

SERVICE

Me and Sister Boyd ft. a smurf (all the fire hydrants here look like smurfs)

Floral Friday with the district (Hna Bonar, E Barrett, E Knudsen, me)

Week 6

Sorry it's been forever since I've written! Last week I didn't really have a p-day. Well, technically I spent my p-day traveling from Mexico City to Houston, so we didn't get the chance to email.

I definitely had mixed emotions about leaving the CCM. I made some really good friends that I'm going to miss, but I was very ready to get into the field and get to work! During the last two weeks at the CCM, I decided to reread the Book of Mormon. It had been quite a while since I sat down and read it cover to cover. I read the whole thing in only 12 days, the fastest I've ever read it by far. It was so awesome and I definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone. The Book of Mormon really is just a huge cycle of pride. And to think that all those wars and problems started out with murmuring. The scripture "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass" can really apply to both good and bad things. It's so important to do all the little things so that through you, the Lord can work His mighty miracles.

Last Monday, we woke up at 4 am and spent all day traveling. Our plane got delayed an hour and a half, but other than that everything went really smoothly! As soon as we landed at the airport, we were picked up and taken straight to transfer meeting where we met our new companions and went on our way. There was a less than 3 minute interview with the mission president, but that's about it! This transfer, three of us came from the Mexico MTC, and there were 27 that came from Provo. Greenies for daysssssss. My new companion is Hermana Bonar. She is from Louiston, Utah, and will go home after training me these next two transfers. She's awesome. She knows so much about the gospel and she knows so much Spanish and she's also the STL. I have a lot to learn from her.

My area is West Lake Houston South and the city we mostly work in is called Channelview. Or you can call it the promised land if you want, because the people here are SO PREPARED. Hermana Bonar said that her average has been about a baptism every other transfer. But so far for this transfer, we have 5 investigators with scheduled baptismal dates!!

As far as the Spanish goes, we're definitely not immersed in it like Central and South America missions but we use it quite a bit! We only teach in Spanish, so any English contacts we have to refer to the English elders. All of our investigators and the ward members speak Spanish, and then maybe a third or so of the people we contact.

I am the only person in our whole ward that can play the piano. They said they've been praying for someone to come that could play! Yesterday in church I played in Sacrament Meeting, and Sunday School, and Relief Society. Whenever we go to the Olveido family's house for dinner, I spend a few minutes teaching their son to play the piano. Maybe one day he'll be their ward pianist!

Sorry, this letter was a little boring. I'll share more stories next week. The work is definitely moving forward here in Houston, Texas! Miracles are happening every day and it's such a blessing to be a part of this great work. Love you guys.

Con amor, Hermana Baker

This is the picture I drew of our district that was taped to the door of our classroom in the CCM. So, of course, the last day we had to take a real picture of it. (The elders refused to hold hands..)

CCM

OHS REUNION!

I'm going to miss Hermana Lucas!!

At the airport!

Week 5

This week has definitely been interesting.

SO many people here have gotten sick this week! A few weeks ago, Elder Ekberg ate a hot dog that the comedor served and got sick, so on Saturday night when the comedor served this pasta with hot dogs in it, he warned us not to eat it.

BUT Hermana Lucas did anyway, and the next day, Sunday morning, sure enough, she was sick. She came to the devotional anyway, and we were singing in the choir, when all of a sudden she turned to Hermana Bailey and said "I don't feel so good..." and then she passed out and after the song was over we carried her out of the auditorium. And she just went downhill from there. They took her to the enfermeria here and hooked her up to an IV, but eventually they had to take her to the Mexico City Hospital! When I went to go check on her and found that out, I was kind of scared because who knows how good the hospitals are here. Turns out she was severely dehydrated from being so sick, and maybe she got some sort of Typhoid? So we don't know exactly if it was because of the hot dogs, but I'm pretty convinced that was at least what started it. So a word of advice: do not eat the hot dogs. From Sunday to today, I would guess that at least a hundred missionaries have gotten sick. When we would go check on Hermana Lucas in the enfermeria, the waiting room would be packed with sick missionaries. Luckily, Hermana Kemple and I are fine! We've been doing a lot of splits so that Hermana Lucas's companion could attend class. 

Hermana Lucas is doing much better today though. And I don't think people are getting sick anymore, it's just a matter of getting everyone who is sick better. Pray for all the sick missionaries here, it's hard to miss so much class because we are learning so much every day!

On a happier note, HERMANA EYESTONE HAS ARRIVED. The whole week before she got here, I had been praying that I would get to see her a lot while we were both here. And my prayer was definitely answered. She is in the new district in our zone, which means that we have the same schedule, we classrooms are in the same hallway, we are in the same branch, it's so awesome. Just a little tender mercy from the Lord. Also last Wednesday, Bridger Allman (another Orem High friend) got here, and tonight Quinton Dickerson is coming! It's like a mini OHS reunion! So fun!

This week's TRC was my favorite experience so far here at the CCM. Why? Because we taught a REAL INVESTIGATOR. Usually you teach members, but this time Hermana Kemple and I got assigned to teach Juan Carlos, a volunteer who literally knows nothing about religion. Nothing about God, nothing about Jesus Christ, let alone anything about the LDS church and the Book of Mormon. We actually found out after that he's a legit gangster, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, Hermana Kemple and I taught him that God is our Heavenly Father, and then we taught about how we can pray to God, and how He will answer our prayers through the Holy Ghost. He has some problems with his back because he's been shot twice in the spine, so we taught him how Jesus Christ knows all of his pain and his problems. We invited him to pray and pay attention to his feelings during and after his prayer, and if he received good feelings and could feel God's love, we asked him to be baptized. And.... HE ACCEPTED!! Right before I asked him to be baptized, I got that pounding heart feeling that comes when you know you should bear your testimony (aka the prompting of the Holy Ghost). We may never see Juan Carlos again, because things are different here at the MTC than they are in the field, but I pray every day that he will want to learn more about the church, and that he'll eventually get baptized.

This experience made me so excited to get out into the field and teach real investigators with real lives and real families and real concerns and real desires to find the truth. The feeling I got while sharing my testimony with a non-member and inviting him to be baptized is one that I will never forget.

The next time you hear from me, I'll be in Texas! My flight leaves Monday morning (August 3rd) around 9 am, and I'll be flying with Elder Barrett and Hermana Kemple who are also going to the Texas Houston East Mission. It's crazy how fast time has gone by here, and to see how much I've learned.

I love you guys so much and I pray for you every night.

Les amo,

Hermana Baker

 

One night we pulled all our mattresses on the floor and had a big sleepover with all the American hermanas in our casa and called it "Pangea". I definitely recommend it.

(Hna Kemple, Hna Christiansen, me, Hna Areno, Hna Lucas, Hna Bailey)

 

Me and my cousin, Elder Smit. This is the last week here for both of us!

 


HOLA HERMANA EYESTONE

 

This is our classroom at the CCM. We are in here ALL DAY. And, as you can tell,  I am the most focused student...

Week 4

Another week has come and gone! It's crazy to think that next p-day will be the last email I send from the CCM. It has been such an awesome experience and I learn so much every single day here.

Our zone consisted of two districts that arrived on June 24th, and also one district that arrived two weeks before. Which means they left this Monday to serve their missions in Florida! We would always call them "the perfect district" because they basically were. They were so good at Spanish and so good at singing and were so nice all the time and had a lot of district unity. I looked up to them a lot and I know they're going to be such great missionaries! We get a new district in our zone tonight, and it's going to be weird being "the old ones". Also, my friend from BYU, Hermana Laura Marshall, left on Monday. It was so fun seeing her around the CCM and sitting by her during choir. She's going to be so great too.

Other news.. We got a new comedor! Before we would eat in a typical school-gymnasium-turned-into-a-cafeteria. It was pretty ghetto. And NOW, we have a brand new building that is so fancy! (At least compared to the rest of the buildings here.) Ahh it's so nice. I don't think I would appreciate it nearly as much if I hadn't experienced 4 weeks at the other one, though. The not-so-nice things in life really help us to appreciate all of the blessings that we are given every single day.

On Sunday night, right before the Latinas left, Hermana Valasquez gave me a note. It was in Spanish, but from what we could translate she said that the first time she saw me she thought she recognized me from somewhere. And she has these memories of us singing together or something. (I don't exactly know.. that part of the note was confusing.) Anyway, she said she thought we must have been friends in heaven because of how strange (and impossible) these memories were. Hermama Valasquez is seriously the sweetest person ever. For the two weeks that she was here she was always asking us to help her learn English because she wants to be able to listen to the prophet. I like to think that she and I were friends before this life, and that someday we'll be able to see each other again and tell each other all about our missions!

Other than that, not much happened this week! Sometimes it can be stressful learning the language or planning lessons, but I really like this quote:

Our lives cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free.

Also, my motto for this week is to try to be a little more perfect than I was yesterday. We are commanded to be perfect (Matt. 5:48), and although it's not a commandment that we will be able to fulfil in this lifetime, we can try. I know that if we put forth our best effort, Christ will help us to become perfect.

I love you all and I pray for you every single day.

Love, Hermana Baker

 

Because when you all have matching CCM Mexico shirts, a mirror selfie is a must.

Adios Hermana Marshall!

Hermana Valasquez and me

 

Week 3

Hello!

It's been another typical week here at the CCM! Each day we get up, eat breakfast, personal study, language lesson, learn how to teach better, eat lunch, language study, gym, companion study, more language study, eat dinner, companion study, teach an investigator, another language lesson, go to bed. Sometimes we have a devotional or something. If you can't tell we study A LOT. But it is so awesome. I have really come to LOVE my scriptures. It's amazing how I've had them for over 10 years, and every day I'm still finding new things to mark and new ways they can apply to my life and the lives of my investigators.

I had to talk in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday about the Book of Mormon, and I thought it went pretty well! Each week every member in our zone has to prepare a 5 minute talk about whatever topic the branch president chooses, in Spanish of course, and then on Sunday the branch president will just pick 5 or 6 people at random to come up and give their talk. So no one ever knows if they'll actually be speaking until they are standing up there speaking. But it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be!

Hermana Lucas (another sister in my district) and I go running every day during gym, and one day this week Presidente Call let us borrow his Garmin watch so we could figure out how far we run each day. And turns out our run is about 3 1/2 miles! Which is good because we eat so many tacos here. So many. BUT. The best part was that when we were going to return his watch, his wife came out with a plate of homemade cookies for us. Ahhh they were so delicious! I miss home-cooked meals so much!

On Saturday we had the opportunity to do what we call TRC (Teaching Recent Converts). But really you just teach whoever volunteers and shows up. So sometimes you'll be teaching life-long members, sometimes recent converts, sometimes little kids, sometimes non-members. You never know until you get there! Hermana Kemple and I taught 4 people, and my favorite person we taught was a 17-year-old named Gabriel. He was so awesome. He has grown up as a member of the church, but only half of his family is active. He started telling us how he really wants to go on a mission. And then after that I got completely lost because he speaks Spanish soooooo fast. So he talked for the next 10 minutes and I had no idea what he was saying! But by the end he started bearing his testimony to us, and he started crying, and we started crying, and the Spirit was definitely there in that moment. Just goes to show that the Spirit speaks all languages, and I hope that I can bring the Spirit to other people, even if they can't understand me, just like Gabriel brought the Spirit to us. (You're probably thinking: I thought you were supposed to be the one teaching Gabriel! Yeah, I thought so too. But the Lord definitely had something else planned for that lesson.)

Funny of the week: One day for dinner we had fish tacos for dinner. And Hermana Lucas sat down and said how much she loved "pecado tacos". What she MEANT to say was "pescado tacos" which means fish tacos. What she really said was she loved sin tacos. Yum. Why do the two words that mean fish have to be so close to gospel-related words!! Haha it makes for some funny stories.

Funny of the week #2: If you take the final "a" off of "Hermana" it becomes "Herman". So us sisters get a kick out of calling each other Herman. Okay, maybe it's not even funny but it cracks us up every single time without fail.

One scripture that I found this week that really inspired me was Mosiah 17:2 where it says "But there was one." This scripture has taken two meanings to me. One, that Abinadi only had ONE convert, who wasn't even baptized during his lifetime, and we still consider him a very successful missionary. Through Alma, and because of Abinadi, thousands of people were converted to the gospel. And two, that Alma was only one person but he made a huge difference. Every single person can make a difference, even if no one else seems to be doing what's right.

I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission, to learn another language, to have the gospel in my life, to be at the CCM, to strengthen my testimony, to learn, to grow, and to come to know Christ more than I ever have before.

Love, Herman(a) Baker

 

This is from when we went to the Mexico City Temple. Sooooo pretty.

Hermana Kemple and I got matching Mexican shirts!

We have the most beautiful sunrises every morning!

 

Week 2

¡Hola familia y amigos!

It sounds like you had a good 4th of July! I'm sad I wasn't in the States for it because it's one of my favorite holidays. The people here at the CCM did try to make it special for us though, so that was nice. For lunch, instead of having Mexican food like we normally do, we had a huge American barbecue!! Hamburgers, barbecue chicken, curly fries, corn on the cob, watermelon, apple pie, lemonade.. It was awesome! Don't get me wrong, the food here is awesome, but it was nice to have something not Mexican. Other than that, it ended up being a pretty normal day. We dressed up in red, white and blue, but there weren't any fireworks or celebrations or anything.

This week we had to say goodbye to all of our Latina friends. They got here the same week as us, but they only stay for two weeks because they don´t have to learn another language. Saying goodbye was SO HARD. It really is amazing at how good of friends we became over those two weeks, especially because we don't even speak the same language. But, more Latinas came in last night and some more moved into our casa! So excited!! We sat with them at breakfast and lunch and they are super nice, so I can´t wait to get to know them better.

All the Latinas here think I look like Taylor Swift. The Latinas that just left, the Latinas that just got here, even my Latina teachers. They literally call me Hermana Taylor Swift. A few even took pictures with me just to send to their friends and families saying they met ´Taylor Swift´at the CCM. Haha it´s the strangest thing! I have never been told that I look like Taylor Swift before. I guess we´re both white but that´s about it..

Hermana Kemple and I finished teaching Ricardo, and now we have two new investigators -- Ofelia and Mauricio. We have these investigators for a few weeks, which will be nice because we´ll have time to teach them a lot of the gospel, instead of just a simple overview. Our lessons are only 20 minutes long though, and the time flies when you´re teaching, so it can be hard to focus the lesson on exactly what they need and not going off on tangents. We´ve been learning about how to begin teaching, which I wish they would have taught us at the beginning (that would have made sense, right?) because it could have been so helpful when teaching Ricardo. But now, we can use it with our future investigators.

This week in a zone meeting, one of the elders said something that has really stuck with me and that I want to share. You wouldn´t go into a lesson with your own lesson plan and expect your companion to just show up and know what your plan is and then teach a perfect lesson together. That would never happen. Your companion has to be included in the studying and planning so you´re on the same page and so that you can work together to help your investigator. The same goes with the Holy Ghost. We can´t expect the Spirit to be able to help teach the lesson, if we don´t include Him in the studying and the planning.

Yo sé que La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Días is la solomente iglesia verdadera. Yo sé que Jesucristo es el Salvador del mundo. Sé que Dios puede ayudar nos con todas cosas. Soy muy agradecida por esta evangelio en mi vida y por la oportunidad tengo servir una misión.

(Sorry, I´m still working on my Spanish, so the grammar and everything may not be perfect, but I hope the message comes across :)

I love you so much!

Love, Hermana Baker

 



It has rained every single day here! The mornings and afternoons are usually nice, but by dinner time it´s pouring.





We celebrated the Fourth of July with donuts for breakfast! I literally was a walking flag that day and it was awesome.





I love the Latinas!

 

One Week Down

¡Hola! It has been such an incredible, confusing, exhausting and spiritual week. I don´t know where to begin!

First off, the airplane to Mexico City was FULL of missionaries. We probably took up over half the plane! I had the awesome opportunity to share pass along cards with two people on the plane. Before I get too much credit, I better point out that the flight attendant helped me out a lot. He was a member so was familiar with missionaries, but because he was working he couldn´t say much to the people who were asking him questions about what all these dressed up young people were doing on an airplane to Mexico City. So, he gave me a card, and then I went and gave it to them and in my very VERY broken Spanish told them that the information on the card could help them find out more about our church. It was such a neat experience, and I can´t wait for the next 18 months!

So in this past week, my companion Hermana Kemple and I have been able to teach 3 lessons to our investigator, Ricardo. In Español, I might add. The first lesson was really hard because it was on the second day and neither one of us knew Spanish, but since then we have come a really long way. Ricardo has been reading in the Book of Mormon and praying about Joseph Smith, and he is thinking about baptism! It can be frustrating not being able to say exactly what I want to say because of the language barrier, but luckily for us the Spirit speaks all languages. So even when I don't have the words, I can always rely on the Spirit of God to testify 

Embarassing moment: I was trying to tell Ricardo that the Gospel brings me peace. But instead of saying ´paz´(peace) I said ´pez´ which means fish. The gospel brings me fish. Whoops.

Hermana Kemple has no Spanish background, but she has picked it up really fast!! It´s funny, she can now give a beautiful, simple prayer in Español, but she still has no idea how to say the simplest things, like 'I have a cat'. Here in the CCM they skip all those basics and go straight to why we´re here, which is to share the gospel.

One of my favorite things about the CCM so far is making friends with the Latinas. In my casa, there are 6 American hermanas, and then 6 Latina hermanas. They don´t speak much English, and we don´t speak much Spanish, but we get along so well! It has REALLY helped improve my Spanish. And my acting skills, because we end up doing that a lot so they´ll understand what we´re trying to say. One night we had a 20 minute conversation with the hermanas in the casa about how to say 'the struggle is real'. Imagine trying to act that out! The struggle really was real right then haha. In case you were wondering, it's 'la lucha es reál´.

This morning we had the opportunity to go to the Mexico City Temple! Unfortunately, the temple is closed for renovations so we could only walk around the grounds. The temple open house will start August 14th, so just a week or so after I leave the CCM. And it will be rededicated in September. It is a beautiful temple though, and they have a sweet visitors center!

One quick thought: Everything truly does come line upon line and precept upon precept, whether it´s learning a language, strengthening a testimony, or developing a relationship with your companion. Because of this, it can often be hard to see progress from day to day. But I have learned that as long as we continue to pray and have faith in the Lord, He will always be at our side helping us. Looking back to where I was one week ago, I know that it is only through the Lord's help that I've been able to learn get to where I am today.

Thank you for your prayers! This truly is the Lord's work and because I have been given much, I too must give. I know that it is only through this gospel that we can return to live with our Father in Heaven. The gospel is such a blessing in my life. It has given me purpose, comfort, joy, and peace. (Not fish.) I love you all.

Hermana Baker

 

First day at the CCM!

 

 

 

My district: Me, Hermana Kemple, Elder Ekberg, Elder Barrett, Hermana Lucas, Hermana Christiansen